Michael Moore thanks Wilmington theater for standing up to pressure

WILMINGTON – Oscar-winning filmmaker Michael Moore thanked the operators of the Murphy Theater Thursday for defying political pressure and renting the facility so he could record a show of political humor to air ahead of the Nov. 8 election.

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Filmmaker Michael Moore appeared Thursday night at the Murphy Theater to tape a program of political humor that he says will air before the Nov. 8 election.(Photo: The Enquirer/Anne Saker)

“It’s not been easy for them. They’ve been under an onslaught,” Moore told about 500 people who filled the Murphy for the first of two nights of recording. Moore said the pushback had grown so intense, "A state senator called down from Columbus and threatened to pull the arts funding for the theater," which operates as a nonprofit.

Moore did not identify the state senator. Officials with the Murphy declined to comment Thursday on Moore’s appearance. Moore did not release details about when his program – which he has been calling his “October surprise” - would be broadcast.

Originally, Moore announced that he would tape the show at the Midland Theater in Newark as the race in Ohio turns critical. Polls this week show the lead in the Buckeye State trading back and forth between Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump and Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton.

Then the Midland backed out of the agreement, pressured, Moore said, by Licking County Republicans, and his production company scrambled for another venue in Ohio. Moore told his audience Thursday night that he tried to book a site in Athens, then his producers settled on the Murphy, a magnificent 1916 movie house.

The theater is on Main Street Wilmington, seat of Clinton County, which gave Moore a theme for his show, “Trump Country in Clinton County.” To extend an invitation beyond Moore’s usual base of liberals, the theater’s marquee extended an invitation: “Trump Voters Welcome.”

“We’ve been driving by this one house with all these signs in the yard, all these Trump signs,” Moore said, “and then today, we drove by and we saw one little Clinton sign in the yard. I thought: The wife just couldn’t take it any longer.”

In his working-man’s uniform of blue jeans and black hoodie, Moore got in plenty of Trump jokes, opening the show with a teasing video calling Trump “King of Kings.” But for months, Moore has been publicly predicting a Trump victory on Election Day because Trump ignites zeal in his voters.

“Trump’s election is going to be the biggest f--- you in American history,” Moore said. “They will use the ballot as an anger-management tool.”

Yet, Moore said, when Trump came to Wilmington early last month, “he managed to give a whole speech about the economy and never once mentioned that Wilmington lost its main employer when DHL pulled out, 8,000 jobs lost.”

In his nearly three hours onstage, Moore less time bashing Trump and more time trying to persuade Trump voters in the Murphy audience and ultimately for the video production to vote for Clinton. “If people could vote from home, she would win,” Moore said.

Through the primary, Moore supported Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, a socialist, but Thursday night, Moore pointed out that Clinton “did write a book called ‘It Takes A Village.’ That’s pretty socialist.”